Our trip south

On Sunday we had to be ready to leave at 5 a.m. for the 4 hr. trip south to the town of Hosanna. This is where the care center that most of the children are dropped off at before they are brought to Addis and the main care center. We were headed there for two reasons. To see the area of the country where Tek was born, and to meet the birth mother. The agency knows that this is an intense experience and couples need to be able to talk about it with each other so each family had their own landrover to ride in. It was sort of strange to be in this caravan of landrovers with people looking at you as you drove by. It was like we were part of some important UN delegation or something. Some how there was one vehicle that didn't show up, so we ended up sharing with another couple which was OK because the conversation helped pass the time. (and we ended up getting half of our money back) The drive down had some amazing views. There were tons of areas that looked like post cards. It was really beautiful.

I am not going to talk much about the meeting, but it was very intense and we are really glad that we did it. After the meeting we had a coffee ceremony and took a tour of the care center. It was a great facility. Everything was really clean and the kids seemed happy and well cared for. We had one person in our group that nearly started a riot by handing out suckers to the local kids. She had fun at the beginning, but I think there was a moment that she feared for her safety :)

On the way back to Addis we stopped and toured one of the traditional huts that they live in in this region. I was amazed at how much it felt like a home when you walked in.

Two of the landrovers had breakdowns on the way back, but we all eventually made it safe and tired. Everyone wanted to go to sleep right away, but we got to bring the children back to the guest house for half a day the next day so not many moms were able to go to sleep.